A Fate Worse than Deletion
by applecan
Summary: Takes place after the series ended in 2001. Kind of assumes some war is in progress given the last episode. Megabyte is degenerating under an antivirus. He ropes Dot into giving him a hand. Basically Beauty and the Beast. WARNING: mature for sex and mild violence. Gets pretty smutty in Chapter 6. EDIT: Janky formatting is fixed. Minor title correction...
1. Chapter 1

WARNING: This fic is M for adult mature content. It might be considered a little gory at times. The sexual situation goes screaming off the rails in Chapter 6 (a lemon I guess) and a little in Chapter 7. There's some indulgence in pain being sexy.

Summary: Takes place after the series ended in 2001. Kind of assumes some war is in progress given the last episode. Megabyte is degenerating under an antivirus. He ropes Dot into giving him a hand. Basically Beauty and the Beast.

Author notes at the end of chapter 7.

Please enjoy...

* * *

Dot wakes up slowly, disoriented and unsure of where she is. Her memory is hazy, but she has the ache of having been fighting. She looks around, seeing minimal modern furniture sparsely occupies the room. Her eyes adjust, making out a round room with a look between a living room and an atrium. She sits up from lying on a low black sofa. Dim light shines down from a circular window far above. Daylight is fading.

She leans on one hand but pulls back sharply as pain shoots through her side. She looks down at her left arm, seeing a bandage beneath three angry rips through her commander's suit. The bloody shadows of three wide claw marks stain the bandage material. Disjointed memories start to come back. Megabyte's goons knocked her vehicle out of the air during the last of several consecutive fire fights. She has foggy memory of Mouse trying to regain control of their free falling vehicle. She remembers in flashes inhaling smoke and climbing out over wreckage on the ground, maybe passing out once free. Then there's a vague impression of being picked up, barely conscious. A dim memory of the instant Megabyte ripped into her arm flickers in and out of focus with no other context.

A jolt of panic shakes her as she realizes where she must be. The place bears an unmistakable resemblance to the Tor, but smaller and not so industrial. There's a distinct feeling that this place is lived in, home to someone, private. In the back of the atrium there's a narrow hallway that leads off to other rooms. In the front is a long narrow gap in the floor by the only real door, a 'moat' preventing passage out of the only entrance to the edifice.

The door opens and floor tiles rise to form a small elegant path. The heavy prowling of a familiar shadow approaches. The floor tiles fall away after he passes. "Welcome to my humble residence, Miss Matrix," Megabyte purrs. He approaches her.

She stands up to him with composed anger. "Where is Mouse," she demands.

"Don't be so dramatic," he admonishes. "There's plenty of time for that later," he says thoughtfully. He looks down at her. "You're little friends escaped, but you're the only one I need. You'll be here for some time. But don't worry, you'll be comfortable. This is my private residence, you may go anywhere you wish. Anywhere but out. No one knows of this place. Be assured you will not be bothered."

"You're insane," she spits. "What do you want from me," she demands angrily.

He doesn't respond at first, looking away. He turns, showing a vicious rip in his left side just below the ribs. The edges are crystallized, but something shimmers in the dark iron viscera beneath as if it might... bleed? Smaller cracks sprawl in all directions in a radial shatter. "I did not return only with new power. I returned with a curse."

"You are a curse," she snaps.

An unearthly growl rumbles through him. "Until I am rid of this setback, I am -your- curse," he growls violently.

He sighs, taming his temper. "...I was infected by an extremely unorthodox antivirus," he confesses. "It was nothing at one point, but since returning to Mainframe, exercising the Trojan Horse ability, the process seems to have... accelerated the antivirus. I can no longer take another form. Infection is losing effect."

"So you'll be deleted soon," she retorts.

His eyes narrow at her. "Oh, that would be very nice for you, wouldn't it? But, that is not the primary function of this particular antivirus, though it is a possible outcome. This unmakes the very code of a virus, rewriting to assign a new format but only partially. It requires an outside force to complete resolution. Without that force, deletion is imminent. The deficit is specific, not just anything or anyone can complete the gaps."

"...you need me," she says. "You need me to save yourself."

He doesn't respond.

"I'll never help you," she says solemnly.

"I've recently learned there are no absolutes, Miss Matrix," he says, his tone oddly indifferent. "I can think of a reason or two why it'd be worthwhile to you. One way or another, this curse will end... all this ends."

"...What do you mean by that," she asks cautiously.

He doesn't answer immediately. "I have two choices," he starts, his gaze fixed on her like a predatory animal. "I can suffer the deterioration until deletion. Or, I could survive, receiving my 'fate worse than deletion'."

"It's rewriting you as a sprite," she asks in a murmur.

"...Yes, the irony is not lost on me. I have acknowledged being ripped into fragments from the inside out is worse," he says. Something like pain strains his voice. He draws closer to her, within arm's reach. She stands her ground, arms crossed. "I am coming undone."

"...you'd become a sprite like us," she says, obviously not buying it. He flinches. "That... has nothing to do with me. You know you should go to Bob."

He stares into her silently. "Bob was not chosen," he says cryptically.

His tone sends a cold pang of fear through her. "What haven't you told me," she asks quietly.

His swift tentacles dive towards her before she can react, dragging her to him. He holds her close, wrapping his claws around her as he did once before.

He brings his fangs close to her ear. "No one else can do this," he breathes. She shivers inside and out. "The curse burns and tears, filling me with emptiness where war and domination once fueled me. I hunger for something else now... something I cannot satisfy. What I hunger for was familiar to me, not long ago... That time with you." Tears roll down her cheek as his words make her relive the shame she felt when he manipulated her. She tries desperately to push away but his hold is like stone. His touch becomes oddly tender. He sighs into her neck. "This curse relies on it. I need... consummation."

"What!?" She lashes out to no effect. He slithers his tongue down the side of her throat. He salivates tasting her fear. She recoils hard. "STOP!"

A pained animal whimper escapes him. He doesn't let go, but he stops. She reaches around him in a slow fearful caress down his side. She swallows hard as a dark sensual purr trickles out of him. She braces herself. The purr breaks into a violent roar as she digs her fingers into the crystalline fissure in his side and pulls as hard as she can. It makes a damp crunch sound as it gives and rips, covering her hand in a hot black substance with the consistency of motor oil. She feels empty space beyond the first layers of metal and viscera, making him seem physically hollow. The oil and the wound give off black wisps of steam exposed to the air.

He drops her and she scrambles back to the sofa. He thrashes away from her, staggering backward. His eyes become empty red flares. He roars as the rupture sends shattering pain and new fractures throughout him like lightning.

He bellows like an animal before bounding away on all fours, leaping over the moat and out the door into the darkness.

She hears his howling long after he's gone.


	2. Chapter 2

The next night, Dot can't sleep. It seems noisy all the time here, wherever 'here' is. Sometimes she hears the neutral hum of machinery, other times a... minor explosion of some kind? It's nothing to go insane from, but it is annoying. There's not a lot of sleep happening with the distant whirring of a drill right now. Obviously, no one has found her yet. She resolves not to explore the residence, certain she'll find the rest of the place to be an absolute creep show. Sleeping on evil's couch is bad enough.

Soft ambient light fills the room from an unknown source. The implements for dressing her arm were left on the low black glass coffee table along with a news reader tab and her glasses. She strips off the old bandage and begins a new one. Her hand is numb since taking the shot at Megabyte's mysterious injury, making it difficult to wrap her opposite arm, but she manages. She looks at her hand when she's done. The black oil evaporated quickly, but left a slight iridescent shimmer on her fingers and palm. She worries if the antivirus might have some effect on sprites. She can't help but feel a little hopeless, knowing her options are limited.

Dot picks up the news reader, looking for any peace of mind information might give. The civil war tearing up Mainframe has cooled to a stalemate, so there's some room for frivolous news. She mutes the tab as she finds a video clip with Mike the TV loudly declaring a monster is loose in Mainframe during a rare break in fighting. There's a poorly lit jumpy video of Frisket fighting a twisted familiar shadow. Mike cites the video as evidence of werewolves. Dot sighs in relief as she reads no one was hurt. Except the "werewolf."

She puts down the reader as her jailer returns. He solemnly strides up to her. She stands, looking at him, keeping him at a distance. "Good evening, Miss Matrix," he growls. "Couldn't sleep, could we?" His words are condescending as ever, but the matching tone is absent. His attitude is lost.

"No." She says. "Is it always this noisy?"

"It won't be for much longer," he says, more to himself than to her.

As he draws closer, she can see the full consequences of his fight with Frisket. The left side of his face is ripped up, and the curse sends further shatter down his neck and shoulder. The antivirus takes hold there too, beginning to undo and bleed him along the ripped metal edges. Her own damage to him is worse than before, a second dire fissure crawls up his ribs. Light falls through the fractures, making the hollowness inside visible. She takes a step back, shocked at how fragile he has become.

"This emptiness consumes me," he says, his tone fatigued and neutral. His voice echoes slightly against the growing physical emptiness. His pain tolerance is nothing like it used to be. "I am disintegrating."

"It's getting worse," she asks quietly, distrustful.

"Yes," he hisses in pain. "Quickly."

She had always wanted to see the virus brought low. But in the full light of day, this seems cruel even to her. She remembers the disturbing hollowness she felt in his wound, which was somehow worse than the gore she expected. It is the only time he's shown such weakness, succumbing to an unknown torture. She understands first hand that there still might be things in the web far worse than Megabyte and Daemon.

"I have no alternatives left," he growls.

She supposes that's his way of asking her for help.

She looks at him with controlled anger. "You threatened to... use... me, but when I called out, you couldn't," she states. He says nothing, but one claw curls into a fist.

"You can't force me," she asks. "Right? You... need permission."

A low growl fades in and out of him. "I cannot stop the fire consuming me," he says in a stoic controlled whisper. "I can feel the pieces being written out of existence... turning to ash. But... this curse... punishes the thirst for control. I'll find no cure in domination. I brought you here for something I cannot carry out. But I still need you. Because I know... despite all of this, you will probably think of a plan."

She wants to believe he won't be violent or indecent to her again, but she has every reason to doubt. She tries to suspend her disbelief in order to move forward. "I think I figured something out, and I have an idea. It might help but... I want something too," she says, defiance in her voice.

"Continue," he says complacently.

"You have hostages," she says angrily. "Free my family."

"No," he glowers.

"If you want me to cooperate at all, you have to cooperate with me. And if what you're saying is true... i know you don't need any of them," she says.

His eyes narrow at her.

"You're unstable... too unstable to pass through a portal," she says. "There's nowhere for you to go. You don't need Welman or Phong. You never needed Enzo. Let them go, and maybe you'll still have a future."

"I had hoped to dangle them as hostages for longer, but it is as you say," he says. "I do not need all of them."

Just like that. No big deal, no resistance. He doesn't even make some sick joke about 'family.'

"You are acting bizarre," she says, unsettled.

"I haven't been myself lately," he growls darkly. "Enzo stays as long as you do, everyone else may go free."

She looks away, resisting but she knows she doesn't have much to bargain with yet. She tries to find dignity in resignation. "...I will stay."

"Tell me more."

The brief moment of pity she felt shifts into confidence that he can live without what he says he's losing. She hopes his next existence is humbling. "I don't know if it'll do anything but I was trying to think of what the end result is if what you're saying is true," she says. "If you are successfully rewritten as a sprite, what happens then? I guess you'd be one of us."

He begins a scathing growl. He knows what she's leading him to. He has known it since the antivirus became physically manifest. It's time to stop running from the future. "Teach me your ways," he surrenders angrily.

"...Do you still play guitar," she asks.

"...guitar?"

"Once, you gave Enzo a guitar on his birthday," she says honestly. "That was the most anyone ever liked you. It showed us you are more than your programming, didn't it? You did something for... fun. You found something common with all of us that day. Maybe you can find it again," she says, sincerity in her voice. "Look for that."

He offers no opinion in response. He slowly draws close to her and looks down into her face. His eyes pass through her, their glow dimming. He follows the curve of her cheek with one claw. She shivers, but doesn't recoil, remaining cold. "Thank you," he rumbles softly.

He retreats back to the darkness, and is gone.

That night he howls with his axe.

* * *

(Optional note... I imagine it would sound like "Howling" by Tomoyasu Hotei)


	3. Chapter 3

The news reader is priceless to her now. Her window to freedom, to the outside. She watches her friends and family search for her. She watches skirmishes break out and fade in pockets around the system. She watches time pass. Then the impossible happens, she watches Phong, Welman and a few binomes escape, owing to a series of significant and very fortunately timed 'power failures.' It almost doesn't make any sense the first time she reads the unreal headline above the video.

He kept his word.

He intrudes upon her as she's reading. "I found my axe," he declares to her, strength returning to his voice. "You were right."

She doesn't fear him anymore. She confronts him. "What happened," she asks.

As he approaches her, light falls across the ripped side of his face. The unhealing rips no longer bleed. The metallic flesh is smooth and new in places. Looking closer, she thinks she sees a more sprite-like shape being rendered underneath. His side improved substantially as well. A thin network of fibers creates a lattice over the exposed viscera, partly rendered into flesh. "Surrender gave me endurance, and remembering my axe turned pain into a different kind of power."

She's not a fan of the choice of words, but cruelty was all he knew until apparently last night. She understands his meaning. "It is healing," she says, mystified. She had doubts about what this affliction was doing to him, and if he was telling her the truth at all. But now, there's proof of transformation before her. "It's actually true."

"You found a way to ease this torment, to change it into something else," he sighs. He draws close to her. A small shock runs through her as he slowly and cautiously reaches for her hands, holding them gently in his claws. The touch is oddly tender. "You made me sing," he purrs darkly. He makes it sound like she taught him sorcery.

She shivers inside, surprised to feel her heart open to him just a little. "I don't know what to say," she says honestly.

"Say what comes next," he says. A gentle eagerness fills his gaze. His look is no longer the self absorbed lust he couldn't control before.

She notices his eyes are also changing. The red glow is wide and luminous, and there's the pale shadow of a dark pupil. He is becoming something new. She pleads with her eyes, knowing he will resist this request. "You have to free the last sector you conquered," she says.

He holds his breath a moment before growling. "How much more will I have to surrender," he scowls.

"You know already, don't you? You even told me 'all this ends.' ...You have to let all of it go," she says soulfully. "Maybe not all at once but you have to do right by Mainframe. You can't stay an enemy to everyone. It's unsustainable." Her fingers curl in her passion for her people. His claws tighten around her hands as he tries to understand her peaceful nonsense. "Cede the sector. Start making a promise with this system. Promise to... try to find balance."

He can't accept that, but he accepts her. A foreign sense of loyalty washes over him. He admits to himself it was pleasing to do something she asked of him. It would be pleasing to do so again. In a way this is better than surrender - this is a gift. "I will promise you," he purrs.

"...Okay," she nods.

Megabyte notices she replaced the bandages on her arm a second time. They're already stained with fresh seeping blood. "This curse affects you now," he states, slowly pulling her arm to him. "It stalls out regeneration."

Dot pulls away. "I... think I know already," she murmurs. She shows him the palm of her shimmering hand, the underside of her fingers. The numbness is gone but slight iridescent shimmer has intensified to a shining powdery silver.

He wraps a claw around her delicate wrist and angles her hand up, sending a pale reflective shimmer across her palm. "What is this," he asks, honestly unaware.

She takes her hand back, rubbing her fingers. "I don't know. I've had it since you... bled on me, and it's never come off... I didn't know you bleed."

"I don't... not until you," he growls. He brushes the curve of her neck. She doesn't recoil, closing her eyes. He traces his claw down the side of her throat. He had left a mark there too. "I don't know this. It has never marked anyone else before. ...I am sorry," he says, remembering the taste of her. The taste of prey is no longer sweet.

"What in the web did you bring back with you," she murmurs, betraying a little of the horror she feels.

"Poison," he growls. "Turning me to ash."

"But you're becoming something," she says. "Maybe it's... evolution."

He decides he likes the sound of that. "You always see things with such clarity," he purrs.

"No... I don't," she says, looking away. "I didn't see you."

"No," he interjects, realizing he touched nerves. The antivirus rattles something inside then. He growls, physically resisting as the curse drags a buried truth out of him. "I might have always wanted you," he confesses. "There is probably more than one reason you believed the deception... believed me. It was easy to imagine love for you. You were an aegis to your people, and a worthy opponent. You are daring and sure. As unstoppable as I am. No one challenged me like you did." His eyes sparkle with memories. His eyes didn't use to sparkle. "You've even come closer than most to defeating me, on your own."

"When was that," she asks, bewildered by his sudden rather boyish excitement.

"You almost crushed me under the power loader," he says in a rumbling purr. He likes the violence of the memory. That would have been a good day had it not ended in his loss. "I lost consciousness for a nano."

She laughs a little uncomfortably. "You sound like you liked being crushed."

"I thrived on the war and the friction," he says hungrily. "You should challenge me again sometime." It would be delicious to defeat her in one last spar.

"I don't have that mech anymore," she says flippantly.

"That's a pity," he purrs. "It seems I have to find other things to thrive on in any case."

This is... nice, he thinks to himself, unsure why. "What's happening," he asks as he realizes he's caught up in a mood he can't define.

She tilts her head thoughtfully. "...Are you flirting with me?"

Despite all that's happened, somehow that sounds vulgar to him. "No... Yes. I... You don't seem upset," he remarks, noticing something in her is changing too.

"I guess... I'm not. I know I should be," she says, a little pensive. She looks at him critically. She starts to think she feels a little drunk, leaning into the next moment. "Something has been bothering me, though."

"...and what is that, my dear," he asks carefully.

"...Whyyyy mid century modern," she asks, referring to the furniture. "I don't know what I would have expected for uh, interior design... but it wasn't this. Explain that to me."

He considers the question seriously rather than as the joke she intended. "Nothing pleases me anymore," he says. "But this is functional at least. It's not in my way."

"...Okay," she responds, bewildered by the intensity of his answer. It's just furniture. "It just seems kind of... I don't know, retro."

"Says the woman with a retro diner," he retorts.

She scoffs as if there's no comparison. "No, retro diners are cool, but you have trendy office furniture in your living room."

"Not a living room. It's a parlor," he corrects pompously. "Would it be better with a pool table? I could put an eight ball on top of the Tor."

She laughs again, an unrestrained genuine laugh. Things begin to stitch back together inside him at the sound.

"I like this," he says seriously. He feels suddenly that it's important to tell her so.

"You really are changing," she says. She imagines that might have been hard for him to admit.

Hunger for her overcomes him and he dares to attempt a gentle kiss. She recoils at first, remembering the taste of poison and electrical fires. But this is different. Now she tastes rich cooling smoke, silk smooth metal, and something dark and intangible... the taste of his raw power. She lingers as she feels power pull out of him and pour into her.

He feels something like warm rain pass over him, and the burning inside him cools to a smolder. Audacity surges through him as her contact begins to heal him. He draws his hands up the curve of her sides before closing an embrace. He rolls his long tongue past her lips and inside her mouth. She shivers at the intense alien feeling of his fangs and tongue. But even this predator proves he can be gentle. He never gives in to biting her, never lays the lightest scratch. More and more she likes the taste of his danger. The taste of threats, violence and power.

She breaks away from him and looks away, coming back to herself to fear what came over her. She rubs her neck where he licked her the other night. She knows now the effect the antivirus has on her. "This is bad," she murmurs. "Very bad."

He resists the first impulse to mock her, to extol just how much better bad can be. Seeing the pain in her face he decides it'd be distasteful. "Does it burn you inside," he asks in a dark whisper. He imagines a sprite wouldn't survive such torment for very long.

"No," she sighs. "It's strange... It only hurts when... when I think of someone else," she says solemnly.

"Think of me," he rumbles hungrily. "I will distract you," he purrs.

"You said you can sing so... Sing something, I guess."

He smiles wickedly. "I thought you'd never ask."

* * *

(Optional but highly recommended... "Mansion Word" by Deadsy)


	4. Chapter 4

Dot checks the news every day, sometimes looking for information, other times to see the faces of her loved ones. She sees a video of something like a green firework shooting out of the Tor, then raining down on the sector she had asked for. The sector is reported liberated. Another promise kept. The no man's lands around Megabyte's territory recede. The power plays and land grabs cease completely.

All things considered, he's civil to her when he sees her. The unusual truce seems to work. He stays out of her way most of the time. Occasionally they have a conversation, during which new confusing emotions surface in both of them. She gets the distinct impression he's conflicted between feeling both afraid of and obsessed with her.

She finds herself feeling she isn't alone, even when she really is. There's an otherness she feels in her moments of solitude, like she always has two simultaneous thoughts at any given moment. Part of her compels her to feel guilty, the other part silences this. She feels pity at the same time she feels joy in his pain, his downfall. She doesn't want to stay here, but she sees the opportunity for a peace Mainframe has not known for cycles. She can end all of it.

Dot goes back on her resolve to never wander, the intense danger of the situation completely neutralized. The rest of the place is understated and quiet with the same neutral mid century design, peaceful in a way Dot didn't expect. She's genuinely relieved, and maybe just a little disappointed, that the place isn't actually creepy. She sleeps alone in the bedroom for the next few nights, feeling less and less like a prisoner and more like a guest. She felt uncomfortable at first in the bedroom, but after the first night she gets the distinct impression no one has been in there for a long time. She starts to suspect Megabyte never actually sleeps. He's rarely at the residence at all. Always in pursuit of something.

She wakes one morning to the sound of a guitar in another room. It's not a melody, just the same note over with pauses. The sounds stop for a moment, then resume with a different pitch. She gets up and follows the sound down the hallway. She stands by the open door, staying out of sight, listening to Megabyte tuning a guitar.

The sound stops. She has an aura that affects him now. The fire and fissures turning him to ash cool in her presence. He plays a quick riff. "I know you're there," he drawls.

She leans into the doorway. He sits on one side of another low black sofa, like the one in the parlor, between an empty guitar stand and an amp. He's curled over a black Flying V with green highlights. He notices her eyes seem more reflective, almost glowing in the shadow of the doorway. He finds her gaze both alluring and a little unsettling. "Come," he says simply.

Of course he has a Flying V, she thinks.

He plays a riff on the V as he watches her enter. "It's good to see you slept well," he says genuinely.

She walks the room looking at the displays. The room has acoustic panel lining the walls. Two more electric guitars (one being the "axe"), an electric bass, and a very well loved but preserved violin sit on stands around the room. A second amp sits between an empty chair and the other side of the sofa. She also sees a keyboard synthesizer. Each instrument is meticulously cared for. She's sure she is seeing something he has never allowed anyone to see before. She thinks she ought to feel special somehow, but she doesn't.

"This looks old fashioned," she says, regarding the violin. "Is it rare?"

"Very," he purrs. "It is a Stradivirus."

The name means nothing to her so he fails to impress. She comes to the keyboard next. Her fingers curl over the keys and drop a few bars from the tune of Chopsticks into it.

"That's not all you can play, I hope," he says, echoing Chopsticks on the V.

"I'm not playing anything for you, If that's what you're getting at," she says.

"Foiled again," he says, feeling oddly playful.

She sits on the chair at the other end of the couch from him, leaning her elbows on her knees. The longer she's near, the more he feels the magnetism pulling him to her. He can meet it with restraint now, with reason.

"I imagine you have a reason for visiting," he sighs. He unplugs the V and sits it back down on the stand. He gives her his undivided attention.

"Where did the antivirus come from," she asks.

"Somewhere else," he says simply.

"I have a right to know," she says without anger. "Tell me how all this started."

He is compelled to answer truthfully. "...A cult," he says darkly.

She sits back in the chair and crosses her legs, waiting patiently for details.

"There is a viral sanctuary adrift in the web," he says slowly. "A cult at its center. The viruses there had become Trojan Horses through the cult's power. They could blend in, move among people beneath notice. But I never saw such undoing. It was nothing like what's happening now. I saw no such... suffering."

"So, you stole it," she states more than asks.

"Of course," he says, as if anyone would have done the same. "Not knowing it was an antivirus. Not knowing the depth of it, what poison it truly was. I stole that power."

She thinks for a moment. "Sounds familiar, doesn't it," she asks.

He looks at the floor, remembering the Medusa bug. "Yes. Yes it does."

She allows herself a slow mocking smile. "You're an idiot," she says. "Stop stealing shit."

"Perhaps I'm wiser now," he purrs.

"I don't think so," she says, slouching into the chair and closing her eyes. "You stole me."

Megabyte wonders what she's thinking as she sits there, seeming to meditate. He slides to the other side of the couch, closer to her. "You're the last," he says.

"I hope that's true," she murmurs.

Sitting closer, he sees the silver marks have started spreading, making thin elegant spirals across the skin of her throat and halfway up her cheek. Both hands and wrists now have the silver shimmer. "The mark is spreading," he tells her. "Do you feel different?"

"...Yes," she says sighs.

"How so," he asks casually.

She sits up and looks directly at him. He sees now the glimmer in her eyes is actually a shallow glow. "I don't think you'd understand," she says.

His head tilts in a catlike way, made more curious by the challenge. "I think otherwise. What does this do to you?"

She breathes deeply. "I'm not afraid anymore," she says.

"...is that all," he asks.

"See, you don't understand," she says. She is without anger, having no vengeance in her nature. "You don't know what it's like. To feel like there will never be real peace for so long... To live with the shadow of a constant threat that lives for your destruction. Then to realize it might really be over soon. To see the future change completely before you for a good reason for once. I think it might be more than that too, though... I actually first thought seeing you break like this was too bad a fate even for you, but I realized you're just as fragile as we are now. All the damage and destruction you've ever caused is being torn out of you. You don't need what your losing, and I have nothing to be afraid of. And I think, if I really wanted to... I could make you afraid of me."

"I am... afraid," he says reluctantly. He wants desperately to hold back, to keep anything a secret, but the curse compels him. He can hide nothing from her. "You're my only hope of survival. You have terrible power over me you don't even realize," he says.

"I do realize," she whispers. She swallows, pensive again. "And... I think I like it." She shivers, feeling like she's betrayed herself. He sees it, and knows curse now compels truth from her, too. "But it's heavy power."

"Heavy," he repeats thoughtfully.

"It's using me to change you," she says, a little sad. "It's very heavy."

"I feel its weight too... but you are strong," he says reverently.

He begs inside that she would use that power again. Show him mercy again, heal his shattering body with her kiss. He is suddenly and serenely aware of something. He goes to kneeling on the floor in front her, at eye level with her. "I know what I lack now. What I didn't understand I would need when I stole the antivirus," he murmurs.

"What," she asks.

"A priestess," he purrs darkly. "I need your favor, but I can only offer you what I have already stolen."

"That's not true," she says soulfully. She lays a hand across his ripped cheek. He growls involuntarily at first, the new flesh under metal still raw and incomplete. His tolerance for pain drops constantly. He feels weak for a moment but sighs as her contact sends healing threads through him. "You can offer me the future. You can offer me Mainframe's future. You can offer me a tactician, a military leader..." She gives a condescending shrug. "...a rock star, I guess. But today, I want something specific."

"What would you have of me," he purrs.

"Do you really have to ask?"

"...the Principal Office."

"Give Mainframe back her heart," she says soulfully.

He mocks her. "Your devotion to the system is staggering."

"It's who I am," she says passionately.

"The place would still be a smoldering crater without you," he purrs.

She sighs. "...Maybe."

Feeling bold, he takes her hand from his cheek. He slowly leans forward pursuing a kiss. Her fingers knit into his. She lets him push her back into the chair, coasting off the energy she pulls away from him. He leans into the curve of her neck and tastes her, no longer tasting fear on her skin. His long serpentine tongue rolls up her neck and against her jaw. She sighs delicately, feeling him lose his strange energy to her. Guilt doesn't seem to exist to her anymore, aware she is propelled by the unknowable force tying them together. She does feel the thrill of tasting something strange and raw. She feels the fascination of watching yourself unravel something to see it fall apart, and the anticipation of seeing what will take its place.

His hands start to claw at her, gently raking her shoulder with the threat of tearing her clothes. She draws a leg up the inside of his thigh. She sighs indulgently as a deep purr rumbles into her neck. He loses his momentum in the same moment as the purr terminates in a frustrated sigh into her shoulder.

"What is it?" She frowns.

"Things could be so... different," he growls. "You're with that idiot when we could be rulers of this and any other system... You'd be my queen," he purrs darkly, thinking of crushing the guardian's stupid face. That would surely drive her away, though. If only he could have both.

She can't suppress a sudden cruel laugh, pushing him off her and sitting up. "Wow, no," she sighs. She curls her legs up onto the chair, puts one high heel boot on his chest and delicately pushes him away. "Have a seat."

He lets her push him away and back to the couch with her heel. Everything she does pulls a new confusing emotion out of his forming heart. There was something extremely attractive about being patronized and refused.

She pulls her leg back and curls up in the chair. She starts to feel annoyed as he stares into her. "You're not even joking, are you," she sighs, a little angry.

"Not really, no," he says casually. "I'm just stating a fact."

She allows herself to feel open sadness. "I... think I know what you feel. I think I get it. But you don't get how I feel." The words start to tear out of her against her resistance. She shakes a little, angry with herself. "...you taste... like... all the power I've ever lost to you. All the danger and strife and destruction I've known at your hands. And... it tastes... good," she says. "It tastes good because I'm taking it back. I'm taking all of it away from you, and transmuting it into something else. Something better. Every moment I'm around you I feel you lose something else to me."

She looks him directly in the eyes. "But... everything I take from you is going to leave with me. I'm not sure how, but I know there will be an absolute end to this, and there will be nothing else. I'm not going to be 'your' anything," she says with finality.

She retreats to herself, falling silent. Her future is hers only, of that she is certain, but being reminded of it sends her mood down. She thinks of what happens every time Megabyte touches her. He leaves streaks of silvery evidence across her skin. The marks don't fade, in fact they do the opposite. What in the web will she tell Bob? What would she tell anyone? She's not even sure what she's telling herself anymore. She feels somewhat justified refusing to really think about it. True focus remains on individual moments. She knows she's felt something like this before, but can't seem to corner where.

A sharp heat runs through the tiny fractures throughout Megabyte's body. He cringes inside as something makes him feel euphoric but grimly ill at the same time. He suppresses an aggravated growl. "Is this what love feels like," he asks, annoyed. She would know.

"Only you can answer that," she says stoically.

"Is it always so... caustic?"

"...Sometimes," she sighs.

He looks away for a moment to contemplate before picking up the nearest electric guitar and begins setting up the amp next to it.

"Are you going to sing something," she asks.

"No," he says, warming up with three chords and flashing her a devilish smirk. "But you are, -my dear-."

She looks at him skeptically.

He just looks back at her, laying down a beat.

* * *

(Last optional music rec.. "Daring Lousy Guy" by Shivaree)


	5. Chapter 5

As the silver spreads through her veins and skin, the effects intensify. Colors seem a little brighter, and time seems to move slower. She rubs her neck, now completely covered in silver. She sighs thinking of his deep feline purr. It does things to her. Strange and intoxicating things. There's a numbness inside too, though, insulating her against thoughts of consequence. Sometimes she even tries to worry, and her own thoughts turn into a foreign language in her head.

Dot distracts herself with the news reader again. Her heart leaps when she sees a picture of the Principle Office. Megabyte didn't just hand it over, though. There's footage of an aerial battle with a lot of showboating. Other smaller skirmishes break out around the center of town. As visually overwhelming as the fights appear, there's not much devastation. Everyone comments on the absence of casualties. He made a show for her.

Prior entries explore some strange turmoil in Megabyte's domain. While normally viral infection remained even without the originating virus, Megabyte's influence is slowly fading from those infected since he returned from the web. A recently liberated binome confesses Megabyte has been completely absent for several days, adding to the confusion and crumbling management.

The day passes and she falls asleep in a bedroom reading a fluff piece about a neighborhood festival. He doesn't return to her until late into the night. She bolts awake before she hears him, the silver designs flush cold on her skin. A nano later, she hears him howl for her. "PRIESTESS," his roar echoes through the hall.

She runs to him, following his feral howling. She finds him staggering into the parlor. He bleeds heavily, leaving long black threads of blood spatter and hissing steam in his wake.

"What in the web happened," she asks.

"I might be dying," he says angrily, his words hiss through the blood in his mouth. His voice echoes like he's speaking through a broken vocoder. "Your clever little brother taught himself a new trick and nearly led your little friends here. I hope you understand that I turned them away. I swear to you... I did not hurt them."

Dot helps him drag himself to the sofa. He drops to his knees in front of it. She sits down as he props himself up against her leg. Just contact with her slows the violence ripping him apart. After a moment of choking on blood and air, he can breathe again and the black blood cools. She sees him catch his second wind.

"Looks like they meant business," she remarks.

"Yes," he barks. A ribbon of black blood snakes down from the corner of his wicked jaw. "Your brother has a rage problem."

She smirks and smarts off to him. "He has a 'you' problem."

He glares up at her, about to growl but her gaze halts him. The glow in her eyes is intense now. She looks unlike herself.

She admonishes him. "All they know is their commander, friend and sister, is a POW. You're still their enemy. They would do anything for me... like I'd do anything for them."

He looks down, feeling oddly ashamed that he still doesn't really grasp the perspective he must move into. He feels slightly angry at her, realizing he was somewhat hoping for sympathy after fighting off five sprites, a handful of riled up binomes and a very angry dog for the privilege of more time with her. Shattering like glass the whole time. He thinks he did quite well, fending them off without laying a single scratch on any of them.

"You should really find medical attention," she says casually.

He gives a hassled growl. "You're sassy today." His thoughts are pulled back to the present as the holes where Matrix's gun ripped through him degrade and bleed. "Nothing heals," he rasps. "Except you."

She looks at him critically. Without really thinking about it, she reaches down and touches a scorched rip in his upper arm. He hisses angrily as her touch burns him at first. She feels a savory guilt in causing him pain, pressing a finger into the damp metal and twisting. It takes his last willpower to suppress a violent response, but he relaxes as the wound cauterizes and stitches together.

He gazes up into her face, trying to find the transition between sass and sweet. "Are... you alright," he asks awkwardly, still unused to giving a damn about anyone else. "You seem... volatile."

"I... guess I am," she breathes. "There's something familiar about this... Time feels different. It seems to stop and move faster all at once." She sits up a little as she finally nails where she's felt this way before. "It feels like time in a game, but... so much more intense," she says. She recognizes how the flow of time is altered, and should return to normal once it's over... once someone wins.

He falls quiet. She is serenity. The antivirus made him wretched, but she wears it like jewelry. He leans against her legs, drawing comfort from physical contact with her. Relief and hope flood through him as she strokes his back. He can't help but rest his head against her thighs.

"Bob was not chosen," she says.

He freezes and withers inside. Reminding him of his own words almost causes him tangible pain. "No. You were."

She knows he is weak. She pushes him. "Did the antivirus choose or did you?"

"I chose," he growls in tormented anger, failing every effort to resist. "I chose you. You -are- Mainframe. The land I could never conquer. The land that held me prisoner," he hisses. "And now the land that will be my only safe harbor."

He flinches hard as the antivirus pulls at a bullet wound. Dot stings him again, pushing two fingers into the injury. He snarls at her but cries out in relief as she pulls a metal slug out of his steel and flesh. The intensity of pain is strangely soothing when followed so closely by renewal. "You are at once a merciful and cruel land," he sighs.

"You talk too much," she says.

"It's hard not to," he purrs. "You tear me apart."

He wraps a claw around her calf, hugging her leg to him. He knows the delicious parts of this curse will end along with the torment. Some rebellious anger still stirs in his nature. From a distance he's seen every drama in their little civilian lives, and now has his own emotional tug of war with her. The experience is both exciting and aggravating. Being a sprite won't be boring at least.

"There's one more thing you have to do," she murmurs. She feels the slightest bit sadistic as she sees him shiver for the first time.

"Surrender," he growls darkly. "Not yet... Soon..." He sighs as the sensation of rain returns and he can feel himself regenerating. "At least it is you to pull my trigger... Let me stay with you," he murmurs.

"You can stay."

Her words are mercy upon him. He falls asleep there against her leg for the first time in seconds.


	6. Chapter 6

(WARNING: Graphic sexy times all night long.)

* * *

Megabyte doesn't sleep long. He wakes, still leaning against Dot's legs. He breathes deeply, curling his claw around her leg again. She strokes the side of his face. He purrs indulgently under her touch.

"You look much better," she says. She runs her fingers along the trails of new soft flesh rendering through the fissures in his shoulders.

"I feel better," he purrs. His voice is full and deep again.

He climbs up into the couch next to her, one leg folded underneath him. His strength returns, but he still struggles against the slow disintegration. He leans his head against hers, drawn to the light of her eyes. "I came so near deletion," he purrs.

"But ya made it," she says flippantly.

"Almost," he growls angrily. He still feels the terrible rending. He shudders inside. It makes a sound like rattling glass.

They regard each other. He brushes her soft cheek with a wicked claw. He presses a slow inviting kiss into her mouth with his wicked lips. She leans into it, resting a hand on his chest. She feels new cracks creeping through his shell. He flinches hard as her fingers find one of the deeper fissures. "It's not stopping," she asks.

"I'm still shattering," he moans, longing for another healing kiss. For more than a kiss. He wants to go down with her. Only she can silence the screaming void inside him. "I'm running out of time."

She doesn't speak. She delicately draws her hand across his broken side in a sympathetic caress and he pursues another kiss. She sighs as his fangs nip at her. She indulges. in the smoky raw taste of his trace blood on his lips. The taste of his weakness. He slithers his tongue past her lips, thirsting for the renewal she gives him.

He wraps his powerful claws delicately around her waist. Her arms go up to his neck. He breathes deeply, his face in the curve of her shoulder. Unconsciously his tentacles snake around her. She shivers indulgently as they curl against her, caressing her. Her life force sends energy through the splinters and shards, piecing him back together.

She pushes him away briefly, getting off the couch and standing before him. She taps her icon and her command suit loads off. She takes her icon off and tosses it onto the coffee table. He gazes hungrily at her, at her soft teal flesh. She draws close, leaning her knee on the sofa between his legs. He slides his claws up her thighs, her waist, worshipping her.

She dips her tongue into his mouth again. She leans into the kiss. His mouth drops to her throat, down her chest, in to her cleavage. He pulls her other leg onto the sofa so she straddles his thigh. She moans as his long tongue curls against her curves, as his claws make sensual threats across her skin. Her breath wavers as a rumbling purr pours out of him and vibrates against her. His bloody claws leave long black streaks across her body.

One tentacle wraps around her thigh, another snakes around her other tit, squeezing. She gasps in unexpected pleasure as his fangs tease her nip. He can't resist a gentle bite and she gives a little cry. It almost hurts. Her nails curl into his shoulders, returning the tender sharpness.

He picks her up in his arms and rolls her into the sofa, bearing down on her. He starts moving quickly, his movement bordering on violent. He feels like a syphon. Ravenous thirst for her opens beneath him as rending inside him pulls apart his code and her life force restores it. He wraps his claws around her thighs. Her leg between his presses against him. His hot gunmetal cock unsheathes. She hesitates as she feels it. Intimidating and threatening, hot smooth metal like the rest of him. He growls, running his long tongue against her throat as he hungrily rubs the length of his massive cock against her.

"Wait, not yet," she pleads. "I need more time." He slows his advances with a frustrated growl. She needs him to be patient if any of this was going to happen. "Give me your tongue."

The idea of tasting her thrills him. She sighs as he moves down her body, his tongue moving like a serpent down to her pussy. With one leg over his shoulder, he goes down on her. His tongue undulates against her. She grips the side of the couch. He pushes his tongue inside her and she gasps as the length of the soft metallic muscle penetrates her. He salivates at the taste of her, like lemonade. Her muscles quiver around his tongue as it slithers inside her. She twists and moans under him, driven wild by the strange intense feeling of it.

He licks her harder, her sweet taste intensifies as her juices engulf his tongue. He pulls it against the roof of her pussy, out and over her clit. She can feel herself start to let go. "I'm going to," she gasps.

He drives harder into her. Her muscles squeeze against his tongue. His claws take hold of her hips as he feels her legs trembling. His tongue pushes up, tasting the electricity of her core, and she goes. She cries out as she buckles under him. Her pussy squeezes hard. He rolls his tongue inside her as the tremors of orgasm rush through her.

Her chest heaves as the pulse subsides. He slows down to a gentle caress, licking her up before crawling forward onto her again. He pulls forward, pushing an aggressive kiss into her mouth, barely giving her time to breathe. She feels herself getting hot again when she tastes herself in his mouth.

He pulls hungrily on her, wrapping his tentacles around them both, tying her to him. He throws her down on the sofa, dominating her. His tentacles snake around her legs as he centers himself between them. He feels a madness overtake him, overcome with blind pursuit of the life she restores to him. He finds his target and thrusts hard. A shock of soul shaking pain crashes through both of their cores with the final contact, their opposed natures and programming rejecting each other. A sharp physical pain exaggerates the clash as her physical limits rebel against him. They both cry out in blind anger.

Their original selves surface for an instant as they scream at each other. "Tyrant!" She shrieks. "Unyielding bitch!" He roars.

They return to the moment and stare into each other through heavy breath, trying to recover this. Megabyte's head reels, dizzy from the shock, afraid to move. Her fragile limits were painfully stifling. Long ago, there was a time it was delicious to fight against the fragility of sprites, to conquer them totally. He had never been made to share their pain as he does now. And he had ignored the inevitable dissonance that would come of joining sprite and virus. He was sure he'd overpower her nature, but she is stronger. The shock to his core is almost paralyzing. They were incompatible in every way.

Dot resumes control over herself, taming her breath into long slow streams, but he can't get over it. Fresh black blood drips onto her from a fissure across his shoulder. He drops out, retreating.

She sits up and leans over him. He watches her cautiously. Her face in shadow, her eyes glow violet in the dark. He notices the black streaks he left across her body are now all shimmering silver. He gives a poorly restrained growl as she touches the fresh splintering metal in his shoulder. His whole body tenses as she curls her fingers in to the edge, stinging him before soft new flesh closes the gap. "You can't dominate me," she whispers.

"Have mercy," he sighs. "Destroy me... remake me."

Her fingers reach down, finding his cock and stroking it, getting him hard again. A deep purring moan and his hot breath tumble over her neck, her shoulder.

She descends, licking up the length of his shaft and pulling another animal growl out of him. She takes his thick cock in her mouth, the girth of the thing pushes against her throat. He breathes out a deep unrestrained moan. Her mouth travels up and down. He loses himself in the velvet of her mouth, her soft squeezing lips around his smooth hot metal. He runs a claw through her hair, caressing her. His cock can't go all the way, monster that he was. She licks her hand and moves it up and down with her mouth so she can suck all of him up. The clear sugary taste of precum runs down her throat. An animal moan tears out of him as she swallows against the head of his cock now and then. "Wait," he growls when feels he's about to go off. She gives one last slow sucking taste of him before pulling away.

He puts his forehead to hers as she straddles him. She moves slowly, easing the seat back, now cautious of both the physical pain at risk because of his size, and the shock from consorting with the enemy. She drags out the delicate moment of breach, her tenderness eases the electric shock of their joining into a slow burn. He rocks into her, a slow gentle movement, sliding with the juices inside her. She makes a pained sigh. There was so much of him, but his touch was gentle again. He pushes into her half way, meeting her body's tight resistance with gentle coaxing force. She moves in long slow strokes, controlling the depth.

She moans as their bodies warm to each other, the coarse dissonance and careful movement slowly transitions into a rough pleasure. He sinks into the sofa as she takes over, riding him faster as they find a rhythm together. She presses her mouth to his, savoring the chemical taste of wet organic metal. Tentacles circle her again, following the supple curves of her body. Her eyes nearly roll back in her head as one tendril curls against her clit. Megabyte feels her pussy squeeze hard around his cock at the same time she digs her nails into a bleeding crack in his shoulder. He howls as pain and ecstasy accentuate each other. His claws involuntarily clench. Dot cries out too as he rips open the bandage on her arm and she bleeds silver.

Dot leans back and the angle shifts. He sinks deep into her, to the hilt. An aftershock shakes them as they both find their maximum reach. They linger, straining with the tension of having found each other's limits, both dizzy from the intensity of being so deeply physically consumed.

She recovers first, moving slow and picking back up when she feels a little closer. Megabyte squeezes a claw over the curve of her ass as she picks up speed. He tenses up as she leans over him. She gets close again, and he's there with her. Her tight inner curves pulse against his cock. He runs his tentacles down against her clit again. She cries out, every muscle in her being tightening. She grips his shoulders for leverage, her fingers digging into his lacerated shoulders. He rakes her back with his claws as he pushes with and against her.

The end of all things comes crashing over them. She screams his name and he howls in feral rapture. She loses herself in her own wilderness. He roars, baring his fangs and his eyes burning like smoldering flares, as he spends everything to the last of himself inside her. Even after he's spent and done, her body continues to pulse as she rides the waves crashing inside her, throttling him with her smooth muscle and impossibly tight space. He shudders hard as she drags his climax out and crushes his stamina, at her sweet mercy. It's almost torment, the intensity stretching on for what seems an eternity.

Stars fill his vision as she finally finishes. She collapses into him. A cool radiation spreads through his system, mending his ripped body from inside out. Her life force halfway completes his broken code, restoring him, making him feel vital again.

Trembling and spent, they let consciousness fall away from themselves.


	7. Chapter 7

(WARNING: a little more graphic sexy times, maybe a little dubious on the consent at first...)

* * *

Megabyte wakes, slowly coming back to himself, disoriented by the unreal afterglow still vibrating through him. He sighs, feeling the delicious ache of being conquered in the most ecstatic way possible.

He carefully sits up on one elbow, gazing lovingly at Dot's supple nude body. Silvery iridescence shines delicately in the light in lacy dagger patterns across her body. She seems angelic, having taken him and everything he was and transforming it into something beautiful and magnificent inside her.

She stirs under his gaze. She breathes deep and exhales slowly, eyes closed. She feels his neck with her hand and travels her fingers down his chest, his stomach, and further. He moans in weakness as she finds his cock again.

"Again," he breathes in her ear. "My dear, I don't think I can," he purrs.

She looks up into his face and her eyes open. He freezes, seeing they aren't her soulful violet, but are now wide luminous gold, glowing and focused on him like hot flares. "Dot...?"

She sits up and pushes him down beneath her with little effort. She straddles him wordlessly.

She rubs her wet pussy against his cock, and he gets hard again. "Join me," she commands in an ethereal voice. Her voice moves through him, robbing him of himself. She eases back, pushing her pussy down the length of him. The shock happens to him alone. He cries out as his nature submits to hers, pain driving through him from the force of joining.

The shimmer across her body turns to glowing gold, spreading over her body and turning her a fiery burning yellow. Wisps of energy rise off her like steam. She isn't Dot.

"Who are you," he growls.

"You have invoked Inanna," she sighs in Dot's voice. Her voice is echoed by something else.

"You're the antivirus," he gasps angrily. She grips him hard within her, forcing a cry out of him. "Get out of her," he shouts.

She looks down at him, her expression empty. She commands him again. "Come to me."

Something forbidden opens inside him as her voice elicits the action. Her command pulls a violent second climax out of what's left of him. He roars as thunder and lightning break through him. The aspect of Inanna raises her hands over her head. Light collects in her palms, burning light dripping from her fingers. She brings the fierce glow down on him, and her hands sink into his chest like a phantom passing through him. She rips through the remaining viral code, separating ego from format.

"Be remade," she says softly. His core shatters and all goes black.

* * *

Megabyte wakes with a jolt, suddenly gasping hungrily for breath. He shivers hard before sitting up on the sofa, a deep strangeness he can't define falling across him. He rubs his face once he gets his breath under control. Then he sees it. He sits up, looking down. His claws are now hands with five long slender fingers. His metallic skin is now flesh and has turned a deep velvety indigo color. He flexes the reworked hands, their muscles curling powerfully. He feels the now humanoid shape of his face, looks down the length of the rest of his body. He has been completely rerendered. A new energy floods through him, his consciousness locking into the new physical form of a sprite. There are no scars from the shattering... except one, the jagged rip across his ribs that Dot had left, when she first defended herself against him.

A glimmer out of the corner of his new eyes distracts him. Inanna's apparition floats weightless a few inches off the floor. She was facing away from him but turns when she hears him stir. Megabyte gets up shakily. She meets him and they regard each other.

She levitates Dot's icon above one hand. It spins slowly above her palm, emitting ripples of light. "What are you doing with her," he growls despite his weakness. He feels protective of Dot now.

She doesn't answer, staring into him with austere anger. She reaches a slow burning hand towards him. She lays it on the side of his neck. The touch is gentle at first, but a pulse of burning light travels down her arm and burns him. He falls to his knees, every fiber in him obeying her. Every fiber belongs to her.

"You can never be forgiven for what you did to us," she says through Dot.

"You did this to us," he growls, feeling rebellion surge through him.

She glows brighter and hotter, becoming enraged. "This gift was never meant for you," she says. "You stole another's ascension. You murdered my priestess."

"I... I didn't know what this was, what you were," he protests. She burns him again without touching him, and his protest ends.

"You didn't care," she declares. "You reach too far for power. You brought this upon yourself, and brought yourself upon her."

He struggles for breath as her command over him strangles and scorches him. "You murdered for my gift. Then in your haste to reverse me, you trapped her here. You made my gift a poison upon her. You stole her honor."

"You drove me mad," he hisses, still resisting.

The angry aspect leans over him as she intensifies the vengeful burning coursing through him. "You seduced her with her lover's face long before I was made manifest. When you pulled her from the wreckage you only failed to use her unconscious form because I wouldn't allow it. You poisoned her then, leaving your mark upon her in rage. This madness was your own."

She releases him from her righteous fire, and the burning across his being stops.

"You defiled my sacred rite, my temple, and my beloved priestess," she says. "But... you are fortunate it is one such as her that became your unintended consort." She eases off. She traces a thin blaze of light in a circle in the air with her free hand. "Few and rare are those that may serve me. She is worthy as priestess, unlike you, who nearly shattered under my full power. Unfortunate I could not crumble you fast enough to put you beyond saving."

The circle crackles and spits fire. When the loop is complete, it collapses on itself and bursts. The light fizzles out, a new icon with a blue accent turns above Inanna's open palm. She gives the icon a light push without contact. It drifts to him, binding itself to his new form. He is whole. He turns the thing over in his fingers.

He looks back up at her. "What happens to her," he asks.

Inanna glares. "Consummate memory will be purged. She will remember nothing after you poisoned her with your violence," she says. "She will return to her people with her honor. I must at least ensure that. There is unfortunately nothing else I can offer her."

"No," he demands more than begs. If Dot ever remembered what he had tried before he wounded her... "Let me speak with her."

"No," she snaps. "You will have no absolution. Speak of this to no one. You will carry your guilt and her shame. You will live your debt and carry her burden. Alone." Her words are binding. His silence of their time together is now his code.

Inanna turns her attention to Dot's icon. She raises it to her lips and blows gently on it. Crystalline dust swirls off it. "Never leave this system," she warns him. "Even remaining here, be vigilant. Your transgressions are great, and my makers will have more than words for you should they find you."

Inanna's aspect begins to dissipate. The fiery glow fades and flickers away, and she's Dot again, unconscious. The shimmering marks evaporate from her body, drifting off her like starlight. She begins to fall. Megabyte darts forward, gently catching her delicate frame. Her skin is unmarked, smooth and complete except for three pale scars of the original claw mark on her arm. Her icon returns to her, dropping down onto her chest and loading her black commander suit back on.

There is a torrent inside him. For the first time, he has no words.

But he still has promises to keep.

/end program

* * *

Author notes: Sooo that happened.

I've never shared my own writing of any kind before, let along a saucy bit like this... I feel so bashful. I draw more than I write.

I found out there were two fucking seasons I had never seen. So obviously I binge watched them recently. Twice. I had no idea I missed so much of it. Something got into me I guess...

I hope the optional music stuff isn't tacky... I guess I hoped it would say something I couldn't.

Time is money, friend, so thank you for spending some of yours on mine.

Cheers, AC


End file.
